Sahar Muradi is author of the collection OCTOBERS, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is author of the chapbook [ G A T E S ], the hybrid memoir Ask Hafiz (winner of the 2021 Patrons’ Prize for Emerging Artists from Thornwillow Press), and the chaplet A Garden Beyond My Hand. She is co-editor, with Zohra Saed, of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature and co-editor, with Seelai Karzai, of EMERGENC(Y): Afghan Lives Beyond the Forever War: An Anthology of Writing from Afghanistan and its Diaspora. Sahar is the recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award in Poetry, a Stacy Doris Memorial Poetry Award, and twice recipient of the Himan Brown Poetry Award.  Her writing has been supported by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Bethany Arts Community, Blue Mountain Center, Kundiman, and WOC Writers. She is co-founder of the Afghan American Artists & Writers Association and directs the arts education programs at City Lore. Sahar dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot.